We are now making those criteria public here, ahead of announcing who has been awarded “the epic retirement tick” on October 2. Four weeks ago, we sent the criteria to the funds and invited them to submit their own performance for assessment. And we’re pleased to see funds responses flowing in for evaluation.
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Once a year, we will publish a report naming the funds that meet the benchmark in at least 12 of our 18 criteria. These are the standards that together give a complete picture of whether a fund is ready to support you in your prime and throughout your retirement. Those funds can choose to display the epic retirement tick, showing they have been independently assessed and are ready to help you make the most of life after work. Then you can decide if what they’re doing is good enough.
Peer pressure matters in super, but this is not about naming and shaming. We will only award the tick to funds that meet the benchmark through fair assessment. Different funds serve different types of members, so the way they meet the criteria will vary.
What matters is that they can show real progress towards helping you have an epic retirement. When members can see which funds have stepped up, it encourages others to lift their game or risk losing customers to those that do. If your fund does not have a tick, you can decide how long to wait for them to catch up, or ask them directly if they think their retirees are important. We will also review funds that make quick progress before another year rolls around.
So what are the criteria?
It starts with your investments. A good retirement fund should have at least one pension-phase investment option designed to support income drawdown, and its main investment options, like balance and growth, should have delivered above-median long-term returns. It should also be cost-effective, with competitive administration fees, whether you have $100,000 or $1 million in your account.
Next come the products. A strong fund will give you the option of a lifetime income product if it suits you, an income for life, and explain how it works alongside the age pension asset test.
Drawdown guidance is another essential. Your fund should help you work out how much you can take out each year without running out too soon, using clear and realistic calculations that show the long-term impact of your choices. You should also have the flexibility to draw your pension payments from different investment options.
Then there is advice. Retirement-ready funds make it easy to get intra-fund advice for little or no fee, offer simple retirement planning advice for both you and your partner, and give you a pathway to comprehensive advisers who can help with more complex needs such as estate planning or investments.
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Tools matter too. As you get closer to retirement, you should have access to calculators that model your income, drawdown patterns and budgets, plus digital advice to help you choose the right investments and products.
Education and engagement cannot be an afterthought. The best funds send personalised projections and prompts so you know if you are on track and what actions might improve your outcome. They run retirement seminars and webinars to help you prepare, and provide structured online education programs that guide you step by step.
And finally, service. We look at how quickly a fund can set up your pension account, process changes or ad hoc payments, whether it uses secure same-day payment systems like Osko, and how strong its customer service is, from call wait times to satisfaction scores. We also look for funds that offer a retirement bonus or have a track record of top-quartile long-term returns.
Combine all 18 measures and you get a clear picture of whether a fund is built for the retirement stage or still stuck in accumulation-mode thinking.
I can’t want to share the results with you.
You deserve to know if your fund is genuinely ready to help you turn your savings into a secure, sustainable income for life. Without that clarity, too many people will find out too late that their fund was only fit for the first half of the journey. And the worst time to discover that is when the income stops.
Bec Wilson is author of the bestseller How to Have an Epic Retirement and the newly released Prime Time: 27 Lessons for the New Midlife. She writes a weekly newsletter at epicretirement.net and hosts the Prime Time podcast.
Advice given in this article is general in nature and is not intended to influence readers’ decisions about investing or financial products. They should always seek their own professional advice that takes into account their own personal circumstances before making financial decisions.
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